“People tend to read too much into things that I do,” he said.
The dispute marks the first lawsuit over Musk’s 2022 Twitter purchase to make it to trial, but his social media habit has landed him in legal trouble before.
In earlier fights, he has successfully beaten back claims that he misled Tesla investors and committed defamation via his posts.
The latest trial, which started on Monday, is expected to last three weeks.
Investors are seeking unspecified monetary damages from Musk, which they say they are owed given his misleading statements.
Brian Belgrave, who is leading the class of individual investors suing Musk, told the court on Monday that he sold thousands of Twitter shares in July 2022, believing that Musk was no longer going to buy the platform.
Belgrave’s sale price was less than what he’d purchased the shares for a few months earlier, and significantly less than the $54.20 (£39) per share Musk eventually paid, after the company sued him to make him follow through on his original $44bn takeover deal.
“I got screwed,” Belgrave said. “I got cheated.”